Your mother read from life’s handbook while making a blackberry pie.

She said sometimes you’re singing gloriously with the angels in the clouds,

Other times you’re clinging to the side of a cliff, the jagged rocks 

cutting into your hands. But you’ll pull yourself up and your hands will heal, then scar.

No triumphant without struggle, your mother says. No gain without pain.

She says life’s a storm, a whir of marriages and divorces, meetings and swim meets.

But you’ll learn to dance life’s jive, learn to balance a job, kids, and being a wife.

You’ll learn that scarred hands bake cookies the same as smooth ones,

And sore feet dance just as well if you kick off your heels.

“Just never forget that feeling of singing with the angels and you’ll make it,” she says.